Now you can reorder tasks simply by dragging them around and dropping them where you want.  You can reorder tasks within a milestone or move tasks from one milestone to another - it works the same either way.  We hope this makes organizing your tasks a little bit easier.

NOTE: Currently you cannot reorder milestones...we're still working on this feature.

We just made your invoice PDF's a little prettier and a lot easier to use.  Check out the sample below or download the actual sample PDF here.

• Your business and client addresses are positioned to be visible in a 2-window envelope as shown below.
• The word 'Invoice', the amount due, and date due are clearly visible above the first fold of the invoice. Also, the dark line acts as a guide for more accurate folding.
• Totals, discounts, and taxes are more clearly displayed and easier to read.
• Your company contact information is displayed in the footer of each invoice page.

We really hope you like the new changes! Thanks for reading.

Over the weekend we rolled out a nice little update. Now you can have a custom subdomain associated with your CreativePro Office account like mycompany.mycpohq.com.  Here's how you make that happen.

Click on the Office Settings icon in the upper-right.  On the first screen for Company Information, look for the field labeled Your account web address.

Enter your desired subdomain, no spaces or special characters allowed.  If the subdomain is reserved or already taken by another customer, you will be notified and asked to select another one.

After you've selected a subdomain and clicked Save, you can find your account login screen by entering your-subdomain.mycpohq.com. The login screen that both you and your clients will see looks something like this ...

If you have uploaded a low-res logo, it will appear at the top of your new login box.  We think this addition helps our customers give a more professional presentation to their clients and team members.  We hope you like it!

At long last we finally have an update package for the self-hosted version available. 

You can download the update ZIP file here!

We decided to abandon the in-app auto-update process because it simply didn't work for enough customers. So, here are some quick instructions to get you started.  Be sure to also read the instruction PDF included in the ZIP file.

1. Download and upzip the files somewhere on your computer.
2. Copy all of the files to the CPO installation on your server. This update is big so there are many files - please make sure all the files get transferred to the correct directories or else things will not work well.
3. Open up the file database updates/cpo_updates_2.0.0.2.sql and execute the handful of SQL commands on the CPO database.

Hopefully your update goes smoothly but if not, please shoot us an email if you run into trouble.

CreativePro Office has been around, in one form or another, since 2003.  Back then the state-of-the-art for timesheet data entry was the typical week grid that looks something like this...

"Hey, that looks just like the timesheet I use on CPO version 2!" Yup, you're right.  The point is, as CPO has gone through numerous upgrades and revisions, the timesheet has remained pretty old school and it's time for a change.  Here's why.

The old timesheet user interface (UI) has 1 advantage ... it allows for quick data entry for 1 week IF it is the only place in the system to enter timesheet data AND hours are the only data you're entering.  Anthing more complex and the UI begins to fall apart.  For example, there's no place to view comments without clicking on a comment bubble and the design just looks cramped.

You also run into trouble when introducing other means of entering timesheet data such as the job timer or the up-and-coming mobile app and desktop app (more on these in another post - later).  It quickly becomes unclear how to render the timesheet rows with multiple entry points. If I enter hours and comments through the timesheet UI for a given project/task/day and then enter more hours/comments through the job timer for the same project/task/day, how should that be shown?  Two lines in the UI or combine the 2 entries into 1 line?  It gets confusing fast.

Lastly, as many of our users have noticed, the code is just buggy. Comment popups don't close when you think they should, timesheet rows don't always delete, etc.  This is due to a cludgy and ugly codebase that has not changed a whole lot in about 7 years. 

It's Time for a Change

This coming Friday we'll be rolling out the new-and-improved timesheet UI.  It may take a bit of getting used to, but ultimately I think it will be more intuitive, relatively bug free, and simpler to maintain.  Let's take a look...

Hopefully, the first thing you notice is a cleaner look and more 'breathing room' in the design.  Other than that, the most fundamental change is the shift from project/task focused entry to day focused entry.  In other words, instead of selecting a Project/Task and entering all your weekly hours for that combination, you select a Day and enter whatever project/task/hours you worked for that day. 

I don't know about you but for me, this shift just fits better with my daily routine. The clutter reduction and increase in visible data helps me see what I've done day-to-day with a lot more clarity.

Data Entry

Data entry for this new UI look like this...

Weekly Summary Views

We understand that a whole-week view is essential as well so we have kept the weekly grid view - it's available when you click the Grid view button.

Also, along the right-hand column you will see a bar chart of hours worked, giving a kind of at-a-glance understanding of the week.  Down the road we will include charts to show hours worked per project/task/client as well.

We believe the new timesheet user interface will be a lot more friendly, informative, and stable.  Look for this to be rolled out by Friday, Feb. 11th and we hope you like it!

This coming weekend (Feb. 12, 13) CreativePro Office will most likely experience some downtime as we upgrade our server capacity.  We've had a lot of new users sign up over the past couple of months and we're hoping to speed things up a bit.

Thanks!

Something we've wanted to do for a long time is to simplify the process of invoicing timesheet entries and expensses. Well this week we made some big improvements in this area.  You can now add expenses and timesheet entries to an invoice right from the invoice form.  Let's check it out.

To add either an expense item or timesheet entry, click one of the buttons right above the invoice item section of the form as shown below. We'll start by adding some expense items to our invoice.

Including expenses in an invoice

After clicking the Select expenses button, a dialog window will appear that allows you to search your expenses for the ones you wish to invoice.

You can use the auto-suggest search box or search by date range. We're going to do a text search on Computer and see what comes up.

Ok, we found a few expenses and are now going to select the ones we want to include in the invoice. After we're done making our selections, we can either do another search or click the Add selected items button in the bottom left to add the expenses to our invoice.

You'll notice that adding expenses will automatically change the Type column to Product by default. If the expense is a service, you can certainly change the Type column to reflect that.

Including timesheet entries in an invoice

Selecting timesheet entries is almost exactly the same except that you can only search by date range.  You must first select a client and project in the invoice form before selecting timesheet entries.

If any timesheet entries are found in your date range search, you can then select them to be included in the invoice. Click the Add selected items button to include the timesheet entries.

And there you go. No more flipping back and forth between an invoice and your timesheet page to see exactly what it is you need to invoice.

Thanks for reading.

We're please to announce a completely revamped file manager in CreativePro Office! In version 1, CreativePro Office allowed file uploads to specific projects - there was no ability to share files across multiple projects. In early version 2, we improved file management a bit by allowing multiple file uploads and file "attachment" to projects, tasks, messages, etc.  However, this solution was not ideal...file uploads did not work well in Safari, files could not be moved to other folders, file/folder management was cumbersome and unreliable.

So what's new?

File upload and management now has a dedicated section within the application and you should see a new menu item called Files.

This section is where you will do all of your file uploading, folder creation, and moving files between folders. We have kept the popup file manager that is available on all pages of the application; however, its sole purpose now is for selecting and attaching files to items.

Upload multiple files with drag and drop!

Uploading files now is really simple if you use an HTML5 compatible browser like Firefox, Safari 4+, or Chrome.  You simply drag and drop files into the file uploader, then click the Start Upload button.  If you use IE or some other browser that doesn't support HTML5, you can still upload multiple files at once but drag and drop will not be enabled.

And once the upload starts, you will get an accurate idea of how the upload is progressing and approximately how much upload time remains.

Moving files and folders

Now you can move files between folders by just dragging and dropping the file onto a folder.  You can do the same thing with entire folders as well.

Adding new folders

Adding new folders is now a lot more intuitive.  Just click the New Folder button, enter a folder name and click Save or hit Enter - a new folder will be created within the current directory. A folders can now be easily deleted by just clicking the delete button when you hover over a folder.

Multiple file views

Another nice new feature is the file list view.  Instead of viewing your files in thumbnail form where much of the filename can often be obscured, the file list view gives you much more information about the file like who uploaded the file, when it was uploaded, and the file size. You can access this view by clicking the list view icon in the upper-right.

So what about the old file manager popup window?

It's still around and available on most sections within the application.  However, it is no longer responsible for file uploads, folder creation, or moving files.  The popup file manager now exists so you can select files that you want to attach to certain items within your account like tasks, messages, or projects.

Thanks for reading and please let us know your thoughts about the new CPO file manager!

Now that CreativePro Office is officially out of beta, we feel good about finally releasing the self hosted version of CPO 2 on Monday, September 13th.

This download will be available as a beta to buyers of the version 1 source code until it is moved into general release.  It will then be available for purchase by everyone. We should have prices set for version 2 by early October.

To request a download link for the beta, please Contact Us.  You'll need to provide at least your company name, your name, or better yet, your order number for the version 1 download.

This beta version will be fully functionaly except that it will not include a data import from a CPO 2 hosted account.  You will, however be able to import data from a self hosted CPO 1 installation or a CPO 1 hosted account. Import from a hosted CPO 2 account will come later in September.

This new version also has a simpler, 1 click update feature.  Initially, updates will probably be released on a weekly basis as bug fixes and patches are released.  After that, a monthly update schedule will probably be more appropriate.

Thanks for reading and please let us know if you have any questions.

We passed an important milestone last week.  After 20 months of part-time but continuous work, CreativePro Office 2 finally came out of public beta!

Is it perfect? Nah, it's got a few bugs, some quirks, and some features need more polish - but it's a solid foundation for the CPO product moving forward.  We're proud of what the product is and excited about it's potential in the coming months.

So what happens now?  Well, the immediate priorities in order are, bug fixes, bug fixes, and bug fixes.  We plan on spending the month of September (and maybe longer) just addressing bugs that users continue to find. And also polishing some features and making them a little simpler and easier to understand.

Another super high priority item is the self hosted product, formerly known as the source code download. We will be releasing a beta version of the self hosted product to existing customers on Monday, September 13th. There is more information on that in this post over here.

After the bug fixes and self hosted product release, should financial support allow, here is a list of features we are really excited to implement:

• Custom sub domains for accounts so you can have myCompany.mycpohq.com.
• A mobile device accessible version of the dashboard.
• Project and task templates so you can set up 1 project with all its tasks, save a template, and create duplicate projects easily from that template.
• Tying expenses and timesheets together with invoices a lot better.
• Estimates that can easily be turned into invoices with 1 click.
• Google docs integration with the file manager.
• A much more refined file manager that shows thumbnails for images, allows commenting for files, versioning, and drag and drop file upload (for HTML 5 browsers).
• Desktop application that allows you to manage your CPO account outside of the browser.
• Better Google calendar integration so that your Google calendar and CPO calendar are always in sync.

There are many other ideas we have but they're a little further on the back burner right now.  Let us know if there's something you'd like to see bumped up the priority list a little bit and we'll take it under consideration.

Thanks for reading!

Our beta testers have found a multitude of bugs over the past few weeks and we've been trying our best to squash them.  Our date for bringing CreativePro Office of public beta will be September 1st.

Those of you with premium plans more than 30 days old will be asked to supply credit card information to pay for your accounts on Sept. 1 when you login. The Solo, Shop, and Team plans are premium plans.

You will be given the option of downgrading your account to the Free plan if you wish during the payment process.

Thanks to all the users that have worked with us to identify and troubleshoot problems.  Although little quirks will no doubt persist for some time, we feel that CreativePro Office 2 is becoming a very solid and reliable product.

Thanks for reading.

It is with much excitement that we finally announce the public beta for CreativePro Office 2.  After almost 18 months of development,we're letting this new version out into the wild.  We want to give a big thanks to our private beta testers for helping us get to this point. We also thank our loyal customers for their tremendous patience as we slowly move this product through development.

Some of the great new features you'll notice in this new version:

• Familiar but improved user interface and experience.
• Much improved task management area.
• Application wide messaging - attach messages to projects, invoices, expenses, etc. Messaging among your team and clients too!
• Much improved file management, central file upload area, attach files to anything - projects, invoices, messages, expenses, etc.
• Footer toolbar with the most used dashboard widgets on every page.  Now you can view project list, messages, calendar, invoices, tasks, timeclock from anywhere within the application.

How do I sign up?

Head on over to http://www.MyCPOhq.com .  Click on the Pricing menu option and sign up for a plan. You will not be charged anything for your plan unless you decide to continue using it after the private beta period is over.

What should I do as a beta user?

Just use CreativePro Office and let us know about any quirks, bugs, or wierdness going on.  You can alert us easily to problems but clicking the bug alert icon in the upper-right toolbar. 

Can I import data from my existing CreativePro Office account?

Yes, you certainly can.  Once you're logged in, click on the Settings icon in the upper-right toolbar, then click on the Data tab.  You'll be asked to enter the user name and password of your CreativePro Office 1.0 account, then all of your data will be imported.

(NOTE: This only works for hosted accounts - you cannot import data from a copy of CreativePro Office that is installed on your own server.)

Will I be charged for my time as a beta user?

No! You can sign up for any plan and will not be billed for the duration of the public beta period. When the beta period is over, you will be asked to enter your billing information to continue using a premium plan.  You can always opt out or downgrade to a free account at this point if you wish.

Can I still use my existing CPO account?

Yes you can.  All existing CreativePro Office 1.0 accounts will remain active for 6 months after the public beta is completed.

So what happens now?

Well, we let you beat up our new app and tell us what breaks. In addition to bugs, we're looking for feedback on how various features might be improved.  We're hoping this process can be completed within 2 to 3 weeks.  Then we'll be ready to release the final versions for the web and for download.

Hi faithful CreativePro Office users.  This is a quick note to let you all know that CPO has entered private beta testing. Bug testing is important and necessary and we appreciate your help with the process.

We appreciate your tracking with us as we make another step in development progress.  The move from freeware to paid subscription based software is something that we are happy to make progress on.  CPO hasn't yet "earned its keep", even though it is so popular with our users.

It is nice to reach this point after so long, I think we are taking a bit of an exhale as we reach this point, happily.

We will keep you posted!

We have been fielding a lot of questions about CPO’s next version that is due out very soon.  The work is still fast and furious here with a private beta release date of March 31 looming large.  There are a few things that current CreativePro Office users should know as we finally enter the release phase of this long project.

When are you releasing version 2.0?

We have decided to do a private beta release of CreativePro Office 2.0 on March 31 with a public release shortly thereafter.

Why did you guys miss so many release dates?

This is an honest question and the answers are many.  Mainly, the scope of work was much larger than anticipated.  In retrospect, we may have tried to cram too many features into the initial 2.0 release. But, since version 1.0 has a pretty complete feature set, we knew we had to match and exceed that benchmark which I believe we have done. 

So what great new features finally made it into the new version?

Too many to list here but the ones we’re most excited about are:

• Much improved shared calendaring including export to Google calendar. Tasks and project dates automatically list on the central calendar.
• The task manager has been entirely redone.  It’s very robust and includes neat features like file attachments, message threads, email notifications, export to Excel file or PDF.
• Team roles and permissions are now user defined so you can give your team as much or as little control over your account as you wish.
• Much better integration between timesheets, expenses, and invoicing.  You can now create an invoice from a timesheet or time clock entry with 1 click.  Very cool!

Will the 2.0 version remain free?

Yes and no.  CreativePro Office 2.0 will have a free option among several premium, paid options.  We will release the official pricing structure very soon.

I’m an existing CPO user.  Will I be immediately forced to upgrade to a paid plan?

No.  We are allowing a 6 month grace period after launch for existing users to migrate to a free or paid plan on version 2.0.  If you decide that you do not wish to continue using CPO we will provide a data extract feature so that you can get your data out of the system and migrate it to another service.

Will version 1.0 still be available for free?

No. Version 1.0 will not accept any new subscriptions after April 15.  Existing users of version 1.0 will have 6 months from the public release date to migrate over to a CreativePro Office 2.0 subscription.

Will there be an open source version of CPO 2.0 that I can host on my own server?

Yes, but it will be available after the public hosted release.  The reason is that we have to do some tweaking to the self-hosted version to insure a smooth installation experience for the widest variety of users.

Will the price of the open source code stay $150.00?

No, the price point of version 2.0 will be higher.  We will release official prices within a week.

Are there help files or tutorials with this version?

CPO has been developed to be as intuitive as possible to use.  However, we realize that support in many forms is necessary for a satisfied user base. The forum and priority email (for subscribers) will be the primary means of helping our users find their way around CreativePro Office 2.0.  Tutorials and help files will be built out as we see a need.  For example, if we see that many users are having trouble with file uploads; we’ll create some help content around that specific issue. We are definitely going to create some comprehensive help content for the self-hosted, downloadable version though.

What plans are there for foreign language versions?

We have long fielded the request for different language versions of CPO.  Our plans are to include over 10 translations in version 2.0.  We already have the translations more or less sketched out but we will be working as much as we can with native speakers to fine tune the translations. 

Can I add my own currency?

No but we have added over 45 currencies to version 2.0 and will add more at your request.

Our plan for CreativePro Office is to continue to integrate more and more features over time as this application becomes profitable.  While we might not be able to give you a specific date for a specific feature roll out, be confident that we have many improvements in store for the future.

Thanks for reading.  Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Dear trusty, faithful users and new users alike,

Despite periodic silence, work still ticks on here in development of 2.0.  The silence here can be easily explained:  development is to be a process that is, in our case, more often just done and less often talked about.  To put it succinctly, we are working.

On our part there has been a little bit of dismay over watching the date we intended to release come and go.  In reflection on what is causing the delay, Jeff realized a few things:

1.  The scope of work for version 2.0 has increased significantly since it was originally conceived.  Originally, 2.0 was to be a rewrite of the code so that future added features would have a stable code-base.  But what happened was that while in the code, tinkering, it seemed more logical (and more interesting) to start the process of making some of the more major improvements that were slated for the future.

2.  The amount of anticipated collaboration for the task of version 2.0 decreased by about 66%.   A smaller team made more work to be done.

3.  The hosting situation caused a bit of a slowdown for awhile but has since been rectified.

As we saw the date of anticipated release approaching, there were signs that things weren't going to work out as planned.  The release date was too ambitious, based on a "best case scenario" when excitement was high, and the scope of work was smaller. 

Now, a year after beginning, Jeff is just pushing for that next release date.   There had been considerations of releasing with what we had completed, but that would have fallen short on what we had told users to anticipate.  We are setting the date to end of February 2010, which seems entirely reasonable since version 2.0 is 80% complete.

The February release is planned to be beta tested and ready for use.

Thank you for your patience and hope that you will continue to looking forward to this as much as we are!

Hi Everyone

Here are some of the features that are going to be included in the new release of CreativePro.  If we haven't said so before, CreativePro Office is working on a new version that will remedy the bugs of the existing version AND include these killer new features:

In the Client area:

• A new client widget on the dashboard that shows the client list and projects by client. User will be able to click a client name and the view will switch to show projects for that client.
• Clients will be able to have multiple contacts instead of the 1 contact currently allowed. This will be accomplished by a site-wide contact management module which will provide the contact functionality for clients, projects, and expenses (vendors).
• Users will be able to import client list in CSV format or a single client vCard.
• Client dashboard will have total hours displayed for a project (optionally set by account owner) and project status indicator.
• Client dashboard will have messaging capability for projects, invoices and files that are posted by the account owner (similar to Facebook).
• Client timezone will be a setting that can be permanently set by the account owner.

In the Tasks area:

• Tasks can be shared among multiple team members. Team members will receive email notifications of task assignments.
• Files can be attached to task entries.  Tasks can be reordered within milestones by drag and drop.
• Version 2.0 will have a much improved Gantt charting system with ability to print Gantt charts.
• Recurring tasks.
• Email integration: tasks can be created by sending an email to a CPO email address much like Remember the Milk.
• Sorting tasks by title, date, assigned to, status will be included.
• Users will be able to create quick To-Do lists using the task manager - instead of creating a client, then a project, then tasks.
• The task management system will, over the next year, become more SCRUM focussed so that teams can monitor their time estimates and deliverable dates across many project and come up with more acurate predictions.
• Tasks will have customizable categories that are color coded for quicker viewing.

In the Calendars area:

• Shared calendars between project owners, team members and clients.
• Synch calendar with Google Calendar, allow synch to Outlook through iCal format.
• Allow multiple calendars with color coding. Allow other customization features like changing the first day of the week and date formats.
• Upload/Download of calendar entries in iCal format.
• Show events spanning multiple days.
• RSS calendar feed specific to each calendar and team member.

In the Projects area:

• Project auto-archive feature - allow user to set a time span for auto-archive of projects e.g. 3 weeks after project create, or project start.
• Allow per-project, per-client hourly rates to be set.
• Show time spent on a project in project detail view.
• Make project file uploads simpler by using an app-wide file upload system that interfaces with Amazon S3.  Allow for multiple files uploads also.
• Provide project/task view in a Gantt chart. 

In the Expenses area:

• Expense and vendor reports.
• Tie expense items and invoicing together better.  For example, if I guy stock photos for a client it would be nice to list these under expenses but also be available to me when it's time to invoice the client.
• Hours logged from time sheets can be defined with an hourly rate then automatically set up as an expense and charged to the defined project.  I'm imagining contractor expenses here.  I pay a contractor (vendor) for 12 hours of graphic design - that's technically an expense that then needs to be invoiced. 
• A recurring option for expenses like web hosting, rent or anything with a fixed and repeating cost.
• A vendor list that would allow the same contact information and notes seen in clients, but then be tied to a specific project. 

In the Timesheets area:

• Better time-sheet reports: view by project, client, team member, date range or combination of all variables.
• Integrated job timer, timesheets and invoices together so you could select a project, start the clock, stop the clock and click a button to have an invoice generated.
• Export timesheets as PDF, Excel, CSV.
• Allow embedding the job timer in user websites so that you can have employees log time without giving them CPO user accounts.
• Allow for multiple timers to be running at once.

In the Invoices area:

• Individual invoice items can be taxable/non-taxable.
• Partial payments can be entered for an invoice and CPO will keep track of amount remaining.
• Invoice payments can be made through PayPal.
• Recurring invoices for things like hosting accounts that need to be invoiced monthly,weekly,yearly.

This is a limited list of changes that will be going into version 2.0.  These features are in direct response to what users have asked for over the past 2 years that CPO has been active.  It isn't an exhaustive list, but it is definitely an exhausting list.  For those who wonder what the silence is about, this would explain it.

We look forward to our new release and hope you all are enjoying your summer!

Well, the sun has come out, but I am still standing over Jeff cracking the whip, yelling "Code faster, you!"

Okay, well not really.

Folks have been asking about the next version which will remedy remaining bugs and have some often requested features.  It is in steady development and at this stage it is looking like fall for release. 

Jeff has been coding on timesheets and doing some of the last things that he needs to be doing as he prepares for the release of 2.0.  Pricing structures are in development and are in the final stages of soon being released, as well as features lists.  Screencasts are easy and are still underway. 

Jeff has said that pricing structures, features lists and screencasts are ready to come out. Look for that in our next blog post.

CreativePro Office has come a long way from when Jeff was hammering out icons that he was making from scratch.  Talk about time-consuming, CreativePro has been an education, a hobby, a tool and now there is a chance it might start pulling its own weight.  We are on the precipice of Creative Pro actually being able to hold its own, and we are quite excited about it.

If we haven't mentioned it previously, the existing free, hosted version of CreativePro Office is not going to be as well technically supported as it was in the days of development and bug testing.  We are letting it off into the wild.  The forum as well will be transitioned to being a place where users help other users to resolve problems.

We have received some good press here , being cited as the number 11 top small business project management tool.

We look forward to communicating with you as version 2.0 takes shape and prepares to emerge this year!

If we haven't said so before, a big THANK YOU to all the buyers of the CPO Source Code.  Your purchases are lighting the fire under our pants to keep improving CreativePro Office daily.

There are source code patches available to amend some of the bugs that our much appreciated bug testers have found.

The link is here:

http://creativeprooffice.com/site/patches

We are currently working on CreativePro Office 2.0 that we hope will be available by the end of March and possibly earlier.  We are excited about this release as it will be the "new improved" version with more features that users have been requesting and numerous bug fixes.

Hi! I hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season, had a happy and safe New Year and that things are going along well with CPO.

We have been busily working on rebuilding CreativePro so that we can add on new features that users have been requesting.  However, we have noticed that CPO is often times creeping along at a slugs pace, which makes development almost impossible.  We know that users are experiencing the same slugishness.  

So, CPO will be moving from its current hosting provider to a much more robust, dedicated server at Slicehost!  This move will not only alleviate the slow user experience but will allow us to implement some exciting new features such as emailing tasks and other information to your CPO account.  

Important Stuff:  We are planning this migration on the weekend of Jan 10 and 11.  We cannot guarantee service for these 2 days.  However, we intend to have CPO up and running again Monday morning, Jan 12.

Thank you again for the continued positive input from our dedicated users.   Your communication is what makes CPO improve.

Update 1/12/09:  While we were able to build a new host server for CPO on Slicehost this past week, we did not have time to move the site files and user data.  We will be moving site files and user data to the new host on the weekend of Jan. 17, 18. CPO will be down for these 2 days. Thanks again for your patience.

Thank you to all the folks who have braved the wilds of our first CreativePro Office source code release!  Because of your bug reports and feature requests we are able to release this first patch to the download. 

http://creativeprooffice.com/site/patches

This patch will bring your installation current with the 1.0.3 release of the CPO source code and addresses the following items:

• No pop-up calendar on date fields.
• MySQL error in view project area.
• Missing icons and button images.
• Link to Add new Client goes to dashboard.
• Logo upload in Settings gives an error message.
• Wrong Timesheet link on the Job Timer.
• Data import from hosted CreativePro Office account.

Instructions for installing the patch are included in the zip file that you will download.  Look for more patches in the future at the link mentioned above.

One of the big new features that this patch provides is data transfer from your hosted CPO account to your installed CPO software.  Once the patch is installed, go to your Settings area and look for the data download link.  You will need to have your online CPO login information handy in order to download your data.

Much thanks to those who have contributed on forums, in emails and by posting bugs.  Very soon there will be a  development roadmap here on the blog outlining our path to a rebuilt hosted version of CPO that includes all those features that people have been asking for.  Keep your eyes open for it!

At long last.

While the blog has been silent, the behind the scenes of Creative Pro have been busy. Those of you interested in installing CPO on your own server finally have that option.

First, a big thank you to all the commenters and emails that have nothing but good things to say about CPO. It is encouraging to see the application meeting the needs of so many people. Those encouraging emails are not falling into the abyss, but are inspiring further time investment to work out the little issues of getting CPO all packaged up to sell.

And things are so close to being ready I can taste it. But I want to wheel and deal with some of the existing users to help roll out CPO as a downloadable product.

For those of you who are interested in installing CPO on your own server, beta testing the CPO download and reporting any bugs with installation or use, you can buy the source code through December 31 for the reduced price of $75.  The beta testing should be done by New Year 2009 after which, the cost of the source code will increase to $150. 

Click here to buy the CreativePro Office source code now!

Of course, the hosted version of CPO is still free.

Once I see that things are running smoothly for folks who buy the CPO souce code, I will then turn my attention to updating the online version of CPO, fixing some bugs and adding new features.

Smashing Magazine gives a nod to CPO!

In other exciting news, Smashing Magazine featured CPO on November 13 and had this to say about it:

"CreativePro Office is very robust for a completely free application and is definitely worth checking out before shelling out for an expensive paid solution."

Since Smashing Magazine is one that I read regularly, it was pretty cool to have them recognize the work I have cobbled together quietly over the past 6 years.

Welcome baby Sylvie!

And, if you are still perplexed by my silence for the past 6 months or so,  I would like to assure you there has been good reason for it most recently.  Her name is Sylvie Roberta Denton and she was born September 30.  We couldn't be more happy to have her.

I'm am thrilled to announce two new members to the CreativePro Office development and customer support team.

First up, Matt O'Connor of Stump Town Slingers has agreed to join the CreativePro Office development team.

Matt has spent the better part of his career building large special education data systems for Oregon, Iowa and most recently, Nevada. I am confident that he will bring both the skill and passion required to push the CreativePro Office project to the next level of usability and, hopefully, profitability.   

Better still, Matt now works right down the hall from me over at Western Oregon University so we collaborate quite frequently on other projects already.  As some of you know, I have been struggling for some time over whether to bring outside help from distant places into the CPO project.  I think we've found the perfect solution in Matt.

Heather Denton of Chez What? will bring some much needed customer support to CPO.  Heather will be responsible for keeping the blog up to date, responding to questions in the CPO forum, answering email, and providing triage for bug notifications and feature requests.  

Heather is tri-lingual, fluent in Spanish and Russian so she will also be helping extensively with the first non-English release of CPO in 2009.

So head over to Stump Town Slingers and Chez What? and give our new team members a warm welcome.  I'm excited about the future of this project.  Be looking for a CPO development roadmap in the near future.

Thanks for reading.

It's probably not a secret - I love 37signals . Not only do they build great products, but they have a way of cutting through the clutter and bringing refreshing clarity to often complex issues. They never fail to inspire me and their recent blog post titled The Secret of Making Money Online was no exception. This is a video of a talk that David Heinemeier (of 37signals) gave at Statup School.

David tackled one of the more pressing dilemmas in modern software development...something like:

1. Build great application

2. ???

3. Profit

What miracle happens at #2??? Good question. Some of David's more salient points:

• Having a price helps create profit (it's almost too simple to work).

• This notion has been lost in the web world.

• There are many ways to have a price - not just one.

• If people like your product, they pay you for it and if they continue to like it, they continue to pay.

• This has been a successful business model for thousands of years.

• Building the next Facebook and selling it for 3 billion dollars is an extremely remote possibility. The chance that you might build a decent niche product that a few thousand people like and will make you a decent living - much better odds.

So, David's talk got me to thinking about my original intent for CPO and it's future. My intent from the beginning was for CPO to become profitable somehow - the question was always the HOW. In my perfect world, CPO would always be a free product and earn revenue in other ways.

As you might have noticed, we have been trying some of these options out for the past month. Since early March, we've solicited paid contributions, paid ads and non-financial contributions like monitoring the forum, translating or writing documentation. So far this experiment has had limited...ok, NO success. Now, I'm not expecting miracles here but I genuinely believed that CPO had enough active and loyal users to spin this plan up a bit by now. I'm a little skeptical - looking around I find that others are in the same boat with contribution/ad supported business models. But it's ok - I've decided to give this plan a total of three months to prove itself one way or the other and then I'll move to Plan B.

So I'll level with you and try to be brief. CPO needs to begin earning its own living - pure and simple. I see 2 possible scenarios playing out over the next 6 months:

1. CPO begins generating enough revenue to justify better support, a more robust hosting infrastructure, regular bug fixes and more features. This doesn't have to be a lot of money at this stage - just enough to entice a little help and to keep motivation up enough to get things to the next level.

2. Or, CPO generates no revenue and things stay as they are indefinitely. I can always afford the hosting account but there will be limited support, few if any new features and bug fixes when I get around to it.

I'm not satisfied with scenario #2 mostly because I know it doesn't have to occur. I know that there are some problems with CPO - I know that support has been virtually non-existent for the past several months. I also know that I'm still passionate about turning CPO into a truly great product - but not for free. The key word here is sustainable - we don't need a $5,000,000 infusion of cash but we do need something that will generate revenue next month, and the month after that and on and so on and so forth. Otherwise, everything will stop.

So, how can we remedy this? I'm coming to you, the CPO user community, before making any firm decisions because I feel it's fair that you have a say in how this all goes down. I'll throw out the first pitch...here are some ideas I have for generating revenue:

1. Created a tiered hosted account model. A free version with no support, no file uploads and limits on projects, clients and invoices. A paid ($5-$10 per month) premium account that would include responsive support, file uploads and unlimited number of clients, projects, etc.

2. Offer the source code for download and installation on any server for $149. This would include 3 months of support and free upgrades forever.

3. Offer a combination of 1 and 2.

4. Charge only for the source code and keep the hosted accounts free.

That's about all I can think of at the moment but I'm open to suggestions. I just got done reading some blog posts over at ActiveCollab and it looks like the community really hit them hard for springing a pay only revenue model on a previously free product without any warning. I'm trying to avoid making their mistake so let's all be constructive and try to find a win-win. I trust my users.

One request though...let's stay away from comments like 'Yeah but Joomla/WordPress/Drupal/eGroupWare [insert favorite open source poster child here] give their stuff away for free and still make money.' unless you can provide explicit ways in which they bring in revenue. Otherwise it's just not very helpful. I know there are a number of quality open source initiatives that make money in ways other than selling software - but I think in the grand scheme of things, they tend to be the exception and not the rule. There are, however, numerous examples of shitty OSS that is completely free and worth every penny...I don't want CPO to fall into that camp if I can avoid it.

Thanks for reading and for your thoughts.

Jeff

I’ll admit it…I’m embarrassed that my first blog post in over 6 months is to explain a site outage. I throw myself on the mercy of the court, beg your forgiveness and vow to do better. Now, on to our feature presentation.

So, What Happened?

As many of you no doubt noticed, CPO went offline yesterday somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00 pm PST. It came back to life this morning around 4:30 am. First, I wish to apologize to all loyal CPO users for this inconvenience. I know how earth shattering it can be to rely upon a web service and then one day find out it’s GONE! So, I’m very sorry this outage occurred and I will explore ways to keep this from happening in the future.

Most of you will know this already but I’ll say it anyhow…No data was lost – none, zero, zilch. The database is intact and functioning fine. One of my other web properties, StuffSafe.com , was picked up by Lifehacker on Tuesday afternoon and traffic has spiked through the roof since then. I’m working with my hosting company to determine the exact cause of the outage but my suspicion is that there were just too many simultaneous authentication requests to the database server attached to my cheap-ass hosting account.

“Wait!”, you say. “What does StuffSafe have to do with a CPO outage?”

Well, both sites (and a few others) are hosted on the same account so the traffic spike to StuffSafe brought down everything. (Gasp from the audience and then…pin drop silence.)

“Hmmm, not very good infrastructure planning is it, Jeff.”

Yes, you would be right about that – given unlimited resources or at least a profitable business model, neither of which CPO has right now. What CPO does have in the way of resources is time and the good will of its users, but not cash.

“Ok, enough excuses. How will you keep this from happening in the future?”

I have one idea. Move StuffSafe.com to its own cheap-ass hosting account and if it spikes again, at least it won’t bring down everything else. But consider this, StuffSafe has averaged less than 500 page views per day for almost 2 years. CPO averages about 5,000 page views per day. My other 3 sites combined barely even register since I’m not actively promoting them right now. On a typical day, my hosting account deals with around 5,500 page views which is not taxing in the least.

Short of offloading a couple of sites to other hosting accounts, I’m not sure what else can be done at this point. I’m open to suggestions if some of you have dealt with this problem before – specifically, large traffic spikes on cheap hosting accounts coupled with the inability to afford a more robust infrastructure.

Again, I apologize for the downtime and the heart failure. Thanks for reading.

Jeff

CPO user SebyM was kind enough to alert me to some pretty significant problems with the invoice editing features. Here's what's happening...

1. A user creates a new invoice - everything works just fine at this step.
2. The user goes back to edit the invoice.
3. Invoice edits work fine unless you remove invoice items while simultaneously editing the tax rate.
4. If you remove items from an invoice while editing, the invoice total is no longer accurate and really can't be changed by the user. Even removing all items and starting from scratch won't give an accurate invoice total.

I've looked into this bug today and found that it's a bit of a monster. There is so much code involved and not all of it is really clean. So, my thought right now is that this will take me through the weekend to fix properly. Until next week, don't plan on doing any serious edits to invoices or you may wind up having to delete them and start over.

Ok, now that the confession is out of the way, I'd like to express a tremendous amount of appreciation to a few bug watchers. Yanick Rochon, Maurer Sebastian and Greg Manset - you guys are terrific! Thanks a million for sticking with CPO and taking time out of your busy day to help me identify problems and suggest great improvements.

CPO has grown much faster than I ever could have imagined and, right now, I'm scrambling a bit to keep up. It's a pleasure to have some users who will graciously point out problems without just giving up and leaving.

Thanks so much, guys. I hope I can do something nice for you one of these days soon.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff

It ain't pretty yet but the support forum is now online. Please go here to post questions about using CPO, report bugs, check up on bug fixes and all that. You can get to the forum from within your CPO account by clicking on the Help! icon in upper-right header menu (below the CPO logo).

Of course, there aren't many active forum members just yet but don't let that keep you from posting. I will do my best to respond to every forum post within a couple of hours.

One last thing, there are several features that need to be added to the forum such as RSS feeds for topics, email notification of post replies, etc.  These features will be added shortly but I wanted to get some kind of framework in place for having conversations around help questions and problems. 

OK, let's move on...

Why do we still need the bug reporting tool?

The bug reporting tool is still around because it's convenient. If you want to alert me of a bug on the page you're viewing, it's much simpler to just enter a description of the bug in the drop-down window than it is to go to the forum and post. If I think the bug description needs to go in the forum for all to see, then I'll copy it there along with a reply.

Thanks for reading!

Jeff

I've spent the past two weeks stomping bugs and responding to user requests for better internationalization support in CreativePro Office. These are, shall we say, not the most glamorous tasks in software development - but they are a necessary part of the process. Anyway, as a reward to myself I spent part of the weekend configuring the CPO dashboard widgets to work in the Google and Netvibes homepages. So far, I'm pleased with the results. Both dashboard modules are identical and they give you access to your CPO tasks, projects, invoices, RSS feeds, notes and del.icio.us links. Look for a Pageflakes module soon as well.

Google Homepage Gadget (showing the CPO calendar widget)

Netvibes Dashboard Module (showing the CPO Project widget)

Adding the gadget and module

There is a new sub-menu item on your CPO dashboard called Export Your Dashboard. Click this link and you will see Add To Netvibes and Add To Google buttons. Simply click a button and follow the instructions. (I'm not entirely sold on the 'Export Your Dashboard' link title so please suggest a title if you wish.)

Creating the module

Developing the Google Gadget was easy. All you have to do is create a simple XML file that points to an application page formatted to fit nicely within the Gadget window size. The Netvibes module took a little more work but Chris Cant's Netvibes Mini Module made integration with Netvibes a piece of cake. Thanks Chris!

To learn more about developing gadgets or modules, visit the Netvibes Developers Network and the Google Gadgets API Developer Guide.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff

Several users have kindly alerted me to the fact that CPO really needs to support multiple countries, currencies, time zones and other standard internationalization features.   In retrospect, I knew from the word 'go' that this would be an issue.  No self-respecting developer builds a web app without the rest of the world in mind.  So shame on me for not addressing this issue early on - but I was always too involved in getting the core feature set in place and stable.

So, without further delay, I will begin incorporating other countries, currencies and time zones into CPO within the next 2-3 days.  I've already managed to address some UTF-8 character support issues and there's even some talk of providing the application in Spanish and French by summer. 

If you wish to help with translation into other languages, please give me a holler.  

Thanks for reading.

Jeff 

It's been a busy week here at UpStart Productions.  On Tuesday, 2 of my apps were submitted to Buzzshout and traffic has spiked for most of the week.  It's dramatically tapering off now as I suspected.  CreativePro Office saw more than 50 new registered users which isn't much for the likes of Digg but for CPO, it's downright dramatic.

Everyone has been very cool and very patient.  The feedback has generally been positive and critiques have been constructive.  So, thanks a lot, guys!  I appreciate your willingness to give CPO a shot - even just to kick the tires.

Special thanks to Pali over at AfterThe.net .  After giving CPO a fine review on Buzzshout, he raved about it some more in this post .  Thanks a million, Pali!

Anyone who registered can see there's plenty of work yet to be done.  However, the feedback so far tells me that, fundamentally, CPO is on the right track.  It's lacking some features right now and there are bugs, but it's easy to set up and begin using immediately and folks seem to like that.  

Thanks for reading.

Jeff 

Most of the features in CPO are built as I need them.  The discomfort with my current work process becomes too great so I sit down and build something to make my life incrementally better.  Same goes for the new CPO task widget.  No doubt you dislike creating daily/weekly task lists from memory as much as I do.  Heck, I CAN'T create task lists from memory anymore...who am I kidding.  

The task widget is designed to show you a two to three week snapshot of your project obligations in one neat little window right on the CreativePro Office dashboard. To use it, start by selecting Tasks from the Widget Menu.

If you have any projects with associated tasks, your widget should look like this...

Clicking the task counter link on the right opens a panel to reveal the outstanding taks for that project...

This revision log has been discontinued. Please see the new revision log in the forums at http://forum.creativeprooffice.com/topic/22/ 

April 29, 2007

Added team member display to project view. Now you can click the Team tab in a project view screen to view the details of team members associated with that project.

April 28, 2007

Created Google Gadget and Netvibes module to display CreativePro Office dashboard widgets within Google Homepage and Netvibes.

April 26, 2007

Implemented UTF-8 support to allow for better extended character set handling.

April 25, 2007

Added internationalization features: countries other than U.S., time zones other than U.S., foreign currencies. To update your currency, time zone or country, click the settings icon in the upper-right part of the screen.

April 12, 2007

Added tagging to project file uploads. Fixed sort function on project file list. Fixed some bugs in the client entry form. Fixed invoice number increment bug.

April 8, 2007

Completed the dashboard task widget which displays outstanding tasks ordered by project. Learn more about the task widget here .

April 6, 2007

Fixed numerous bugs on the finance reporting page that displays the YTD finance charts. Still more work to be done here.

April 5, 2007

Fixed a bug in the dashboard RSS reader that prevented feeds from being displayed when the widget was opened from the widget menu.

March 17, 2004

Finished the bug reporting tool. Now a user can submit a bug report from anywhere in the application by clicking the icon in the upper-right system menu.

March 14, 2007

Reworked how RSS feeds are read. Initially, RSS feeds would be read before the dashboard page load when a user logs in. If a user had many feeds, it could take 30 seconds or more before the dashboard would render. I moved the RSS read operation to take place after the dashboard renders. I still don't like how it works but it'll do for now.

March 8, 2007

Added tagging feature to Projects, Clients, Project Files and Invoices.

March 2, 2007

Repaired bugs in user signup process.

March 1, 2007

CreativePro Office beta is officially released.

CreativePro Office has a nice feature that lets you upload files to individual projects and then make certain files visible to your clients. For example, you've just finished 2 Photoshop comps of a brochure for a client. Upload them to the project, make them public and your client can now view the files and comment on them in their client area.

The problem is that this feature is not scaleable right now. CPO currently exists on a shared hosting platform and without venture funding or a solid revenue model, this is the ways it's gonna be for the near future.

For the past few weeks I've been looking around for an online file storage service to integrate with CreativePro Office.  I first looked at Box.net because they are integrated with both Pageflakes and Netvibes .  Box.net provides 1GB with their free plan and they have great API documentation.  However, the API requires that you login to your account at the Box.net website.  That won't work.

Then I found Omnidrive .  They also offer a 1GB free account and their API can be accessed from within CPO - users are authenticated through a REST call.  The only problem I've run into so far is their API docs - they're terrible.  But I'm making some progress and once I get a working prototype, I'll release the PHP API code in a blog post.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff 

If you've been following the GoPlan Blog for the past few months, you'll know they've been able to generate quite some buzz with an invitation only release a few months back. Well, GoPlan is now available to the masses - I signed up for the free account last night. It is impressive and kudos to the guys at WeBreakStuff.com for producing a nice app!

If you don't know, GoPlan is an online project management suite with some nice collaboration features built in. From the GoPlan blog...

Goplan is an online project management solution. It allows teams and individuals to collaborate through tasks, file management, real-time chat, online calendaring, and many other features.

Ok, I created my account and I logged in and was immediately infatuated with the eye candy. GoPlan looks great. It's got an intuitive layout, pretty icons and a soothing color scheme - maybe a bit like Blinksale . Now I realize look and feel is very subjective. 37 Signals and their Basecamp product have the whole "simple is genious" thing going on and that's fine. But frankly, I'm a bit shallow. When I'm using an app for an hour or more, I want it to be pretty. Ok, enough said about that.

So yeah, I wanna be GoPlan - I want CreativePro Office to be just as pretty and just as simple to use. But playing with GoPlan for awhile brought me back to just why I built CPO in the first place. For example, GoPlan has no invoicing feature - yet. It has no expense tracking feature - yet. It has no timesheet feature - yet. I say 'yet' because GoPlan is very much in an early release stage and the team may add these features later. Or they may stick with the core feature set they have now and that's great and it will work stunningly for a lot of users.

But my vision for CPO has always been a complete end-to-end solution for the single developer or very small (2-5 people) development team or the single developer with 2 or 3 subcontractors, etc. By end-to-end I mean from drafting an estimate to sending the invoices - every stage of the project life-cycle is handled by one app. Back in the day, I used to get really tired of creating estimates and quote in a Word template, then tracking my hours online, using Outlook as my default task manager (you know what I mean), and then creating invoices with an Excel file. Things are much better these days and apps like GoPlan do a lot of the heavy lifting. But I still need to access 3 or more apps to get everything done.

For now, I'm sticking with the end-to-end approach with CreativePro Office and we'll see how it works out. Maybe it's just too darn complicated to pull off well.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff

So I've had a couple of questions recently concerning IE support on CreativePro Office. Currently, the layout breaks in IE 6 and 7 and there are some JavaScript issues with IE as well - surprise, surprise! And CreativePro Office hasn't even been tested on Safari yet.

Yes, I do intend to support both Safari and IE (6 and 7) in the near future. So, what's the holdup? Well first of all, CPO is in beta (some might even say alpha) release which means things are changing and changing daily. Also, when building any web app, I prefer to work exclusively in Firefox as do most folks. Once the layout and JavaScript behaviors are nailed down in FF and I'm happy, then I know how things are supposed to work. I've found that testing in multiple browsers as I develop is a massive waste of time because the testing scenario usually goes something like this:

1. Build layout in Firefox.
2. Test layout in IE - find that it breaks.
3. Fix layout for IE.
4. Tweak some styles, elements, JavaScript, etc. in Firefox to accommodate changes made for IE.
5. Test layout in Safari - find that it breaks, though not nearly as bad as IE.
6. Throw out an entire chunk of the UI or JavaScript code make way for new features.
7. Go back to #1 and repeat.

So until users are satisfied with a stable release of CPO, plan on using CreativePro Office with Firefox on a Mac or PC. I'm sorry if this presents an inconvenience and look for enhanced browser support some time in May of 2007.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff

OK, here we go. The CreativePro Office beta officially launches today - no more putting it off. I missed my original launch date by 2 months but a lot of good stuff has happened in that time...

• Tasks and milestones can now be added to projects,
• Tasks can be viewed as a Gantt chart,
• Files can be uploaded to projects,
• Multiple users (employees, contractors, administrators) can now be added to a CPO account,
• An integrated bug reporting tool has been added,
• The app was converted to PHP 5 and lots of code was refactored.

• The client area needs a lot of work. The client area allows your clients to login with credentials that you assign and view their projects, invoices and public project files.
• Invoice editing has a JavaScript bug that incorrectly calculates the invoice total when tax or shipping is included.
• The tasks dashboard widget needs to be built.
• The task Gantt chart feature has some formatting issues.
• The Office Search feature needs to be completed.

In my perfect world, one app would handle client contacts, project tasks, billable hours, invoicing, expenses, and provide a space for collaboration among the developer, subcontractors and clients. Initial client contact to final project invoice would be handled by one, integrated environment. Oh, and it would be FREE! Not free like “you can send one invoice to one client per month” free, but completely free for all features.

January March 2007 Release Features

1. Client manager and interface
2. Invoicing
3. Expense tracker (Removed until polished - or until someone screams for it)
   
4. Quotes and estimates (Coming summer '07)
5. Project and task manager
6. Comprehesive, 'at-a-glance' executive dashboard
7. User manager for employees, sub-contractors or other administrators

We'll see how things progress. Thanks for reading!